The truth is, he likes the day after more.
He is expected to enjoy the festivals themselves, and by itself it is not an expectation he will ever defy. It is beyond his abilities. He enjoys them even before they arrive, awaits them with bated breath, runs his hands through thrushes of grass as they thrum, coursing just beneath from the drumbeat of His arrival, lets the electricity fill his lungs as the air sings with something fast approaching.
He relishes it even more when they finally do arrive, fills his blood with the sweetness of lights and bodies dancing in rungs a hundred strong, lets the laughter ring in his ears till they burst and responds in turn. When course around him, weaving through his legs, they reach for him, and he takes their hands with a single finger, spins them into lights and lanterns and sends them floating, each of them—hundreds now and thousands more as the night darkens—lighting the air with their brilliant fires of joy.
His favorite part, and it is no contest, is when he is finally seated at His side, at their places at the peak. The fond stare He gives them, the hoards and their boisterous joy, seating themselves in clusters of brightness as they sit beneath them.
The best part is when He finally looks away, and in an instant he will present Him wines, and cheeses, and bread, and pastries, and every simple delight he encountered during their time apart into His awaiting arms, for Him to taste with teeth and flesh every moment he thought of Him, of every moment he waited till this day to share.
There is no impatience as he relays them all, but He never allows them to be eaten alone, always splitting a slice with His fingers, saving a sip in a glass, and together they share each and every one. Though he has tasted them all before, never are they so wonderful as they are that day, when he and Him are wrapped so close as to become one thing. When he tastes them again across His teeth.
He ought to feel bereft the next morning, when the sky clears and each light in the sky goes clear. When he is left alone in that sprawling clearing, supine against the soil. That the day for which he lives has passed, and that he is the furthest from the next. That his wait begins anew.
They will not tell you, because they do not know. The truth is, he can be a selfish thing. And so he loves that day.
The grass thrums no longer, not with the sound of those hoards, and the air is silent. The whole world has cleared out, quiet as a whisper in its wake.
But the drumbeat remains. And they will not tell you, because they do not know, but He lingers. The air is sweet with the smell of him, but it is only him. The soil murmurs, but only with the rumble of a single heartbeat. It whispers and it flutters and it trembles all magnified by the sheer silence. It is then that he can hear Him best. The sweet nothings in every win, the laughter in waving leaves. The easy breaths in the bubbling brook, the smile in the sun.
It is a day for only them. The hordes have departed on their path across the sky, and He is soon to join. But for now He lingers, sweet and soft, for only him to enjoy.
And they will not tell you, but he is a selfish thing. He sinks, supine in the grass’ soft drumbeat, laces his fingers through the trembling soil. And he enjoys it more than any festival there ever was.